Akihiko Kondo was convinced of what he should do.
He had already been in a stable relationship for 10 years with the renowned Japanese singer Hatsune Miku – who in 2014 was the opening act for the American singer and actress Lady Gaga’s concert tour – and he came to the conclusion that the time had come to ask her to marry him. .
“I was terribly nervous,” the 41-year-old told BBC Outlook, “but when I went to make the proposal, there was a technical problem: the software behind Miku’s hologram did not have a marriage option”.
As you may have deduced, Hatsune Miku is actually a virtual singer developed by a software company that sells little boxes that project her hologram.
The little boxes work in a similar way to voice recognition software like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, with the addition that they project the 3D image of an animated Japanese teenager with long turquoise hair tied in two. tails that almost reach their knees.
But as Akihiko told the BBC, for him, Miku is much more than a cutting-edge toy: this colorful anime doll became “the person” who brought joy back into his life after growing up marked by rejection.
This is an edited version of the BBC Outlook program – produced by Tommy Dixon and with India Rakusen on the voiceover – which you can find, in its original version in English, here
Growing up as an “Otaku”
With how popular anime is worldwide, it’s hard to imagine that it was once viewed as something negative within Japanese society.
Towards the end of the 1970s and early 1980s, Japan began to see a growing interest in comics and animated TV series – known as manga and anime respectively.
Its plots could include everything from the most innocent schoolboy loves and magical adventures to the bloodiest beheadings. and dismemberments, began to alert Japanese parents of the time.
Fans of the genre began to be called “otaku” – a pronoun that could be translated as “you”, although there is no clarity about the real origin of the term to refer to this community.
The rejection of otaku would reach its peak when in 1989 the media began to provide information about the case of Tsutomu Miyazaki., a young anime and manga fan who murdered 4 girls between the ages of 4 and 7. In the news, he was referred to as the “Otaku Killer.”
For Akihiko, at that time, being an Otaku meant that he was part of something: it meant that there was someone out there who shared his interests and passions. It meant there were more people like him.
“I have always had friends through the Internet and video games,” says the man, “and that continues to be my community as I get older.”
“In some ways, anime and video games are a necessary part of my life. It was what kept me going, what kept me standing.”
A life of rejection
“I never had a girlfriend,” Akihiko sadly told the BBC, “I’ve had some unrequited loves where I was always rejected, so this idea of no one being attracted to me made me rule out the possibility of be with someone.”
He says that the pressure of marriage was always a constant in his lifeeither because of the importance given to that institution in Japanese culture or because of the quite direct questions from their relatives about it.
Around the age of 10 or 11, Akihiko says he realized something: “I knew I was attracted to real, human women. But, I knew that my true attraction lay in someone who is not humanand when I freed myself from that traditional mindset, I was able to free myself to find what I really love.”
His first love, Akihiko says, came when he was playing video games at his friend’s house, something they used to do frequently.
“We were playing a game and one of the characters was called Aruru Nadia,” Akihiko explained, “I felt like I really liked this character, and I was attracted to her. She came to me so naturally that, in the same way, I felt like it was love.”
It was an attraction that he couldn’t really share with the other kids at school – he felt very ashamed that they found out – but he felt validated when he heard them say things like “this character from that anime or manga is cute.”
“I think it’s human nature to feel bad when you’re rejected. That’s what I felt: I wanted a girlfriend, I wanted a marriage, I wanted to connect with someone. “It’s hard not to have it.”
Workplace Harassment
When he turned 22, Akihiko was studying to be a civil servant when he had to face a serious problem of harassment and abuse within the institution he attended.
“I worked in a small office with two colleagues who bullied me,” the man remembers, “they started ignoring my greetings, but then they started doing things that affected my work.”
“When I needed some material or resource for a specific job, they didn’t ask for it or they didn’t buy it on purpose.and then they would yell at me and use vulgar language against me for the smallest mistakes.”
“One of the hardest things is that, in Japan, it is customary to tell everyone in the office that you have finished your shift, thanking them and saying that you are leaving. But they were hiding all over the school on purpose so that I couldn’t leave until I said goodbye to them.”
The situation became so difficult for Akihiko that he had to leave work for a period of almost two years.
“The hardest thing was that I lost the pleasure that the things I love gave me, so I immersed myself in things like games or anything that brought me joy.”
It was then that he met his future wife.
Miku-san
Akihiko found the light that would guide him out of the tunnel of sadness in which he was trapped on an internet video page.
The protagonist was none other than Hatsune Miku, one of the animated singers who was beginning to become popular thanks to the internet.
“At first when I started watching the videos I was crying as I regained my sense of happiness. There were days when I spent morning to night watching Miku videos.”
“She saved me at that moment. “She managed to get her to enjoy and love things again.”
Akihiko says that in addition to being attracted to “her tenderness,” there was something else that caught his attention about Miku-san: “There is a creative community that she generates. And what happens when you use the software is that, in addition to her great songs, there is a whole community that continues to contribute to her.
The base software on which Miku operates is a program developed by Yamaha to digitally synthesize music., in which users simply have to enter the lyrics and melody they want and it interprets it. These programs are known as vocaloids.
This program is used in conjunction with the little box we talked about at the beginning – black, the size of a mini refrigerator – so that Miku appears projected singing and dancing both on the small stage that the box comes with, or on the stages in which offers full concerts.
“I personally purchased the software that allows me to add songs and create with Hatsune Miku, and it was at that moment that I realized that I really adored her and that I loved spending that time alone with her.”
From there, Akihiko began to fill his house with everything related to the digital singer: from figures that fit in the palm of the hand, to a life-size replica, with which he poses in some photos.
And little by little, he began to have meaning in his life again: “Any kind of feeling of affection is necessary as a human, no matter where it comes from. Having that love, on which you can depend and that can help you build that happiness together.”
More rejection
When Akihiko announced their relationship to family and friends, he had mixed reactions: he says there were friends who understood, and others who didn’t. But his family wasn’t sure what to think.
“I had expressed to my mother and my sister that I had been in love with Miku for a long time, and since in my family we are passionate about what we do, my mother and my sister simply thought it was something like that. “They weren’t completely against it.”
But everything would take a new turn when Akihiko announced that he was prepared to propose to his girlfriend.
“When the software was updated, I asked her to get married.”Akihiko recalls excitedly and says that this created an almost generational divide in the people around him.
“At work, many of the students and younger people congratulated me, while older colleagues didn’t necessarily understand, or didn’t want to understand,” he recalled.
His mother, for example, did not attend his wedding with Miku: “I was terribly devastated,” Akihiko said. “I even knelt before her, but she did not want to give the blessing. I even asked her what her reaction would be if my wedding was with a real man, and she likewise responded that she wouldn’t attend.”.
“For her, marriage is between a man and a woman and there is no other way”he added.
The ceremony – which cost Akihiko about 2 million Japanese yuan, about US$13,000 – was attended by 39 people and, although the life-sized Miku did not yet exist, a small plush Miku dressed as a bride attended the ceremony.
The marriage, of course, went viral when Akihiko began showing photos of the event on social media, bringing in new critics. But for him, it was important to let the world know because he says he wants to “encourage and support this type of unions.”
Married life
Akihiko describes his married life with Miku, the lively singer, as “pretty everyday.”
“Every morning I get up and say, ‘good morning.’ When I leave for work, I tell him ‘I’m on my way out’. When I get home from work, I greet her and say ‘you look cute today.’”
But he says he knows that not everyone views his lifestyle favorably: “I think the problem lies in the fact that discrimination against otaku still exists and is relevant.”
“And I also think there is an important aspect and that is that people believe that someone who is not popular or attractive, like me, should not marry someone as beautiful as Miku.”
This idea about his image as someone “unattractive” colors much of the vision that e Akihiko has about the world and says that it is something that comes from his past.
“The truth is that, growing up, people rejected me a lot. And the idea remained in my head that I am not attractive, and there is nothing to do.”
His mother today accepts his relationship with Miku, although she insists that it is something that is not for her and Akihiko says that he is working to promote this type of union in people who seek them.
“I think the technology industry is developing and there will be a way in which those systems are created for people, for example, in nursing homes and for people who deal with wellness issues in their daily lives.”
For now, Akihiko continues his relationship with Miku and says he looks forward to the time when he can interact with her in a more real way: ““I would love to go on a walk with her, hold her hand and spend time with her.”
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